Edward Hollis studied Architecture at Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and practised as an architect in Sri Lanka and Edinburgh. In 1999 he began lecturing in Interior Architecture at Napier University, Edinburgh and in 2004 he moved to Edinburgh College of Art, where he is now Director of Research and Professor of Interior Design.
His research focuses on the junction of building re-use, narrative and time. His first book, The Secret Lives of Buildings, was published in 2009; his second, The Memory Palace: A Book of Lost Interiors, in 2013, his third, How To Make a Home, in 2016.